For Berggreen (Christian) perhaps in DK you have some discounted tire shops and they may be able to offer tires what are not available here in USA/North America. So, pay a visit to a few shops and see what they can find in the appropriate sizing...185-14, 195/75-14, 205/70-14 etc. You may come up with one that we cannot find.
Thanx, this is good advice.
We do have some low priced alternatives in Europe, like eg. the Radar Dimax Classic (see my post above), but unfortunately they all have wider side stribes, around 25-28 mm. I think this looks great on the 230/250SL with the old-style hub caps. But for the 280SL with the one-piece hub caps, I personally prefer tyres with the narrow side stribes, thus less than 20 mm.
Most of the expensive tyres like Michelin, Vredestein, Dunlop, Pirelli, etc. all have 20 mm stribes. But I prefer the 16-17 mm which many of the cheaper alternatives on the US market have. Only down-side is that most of these tyres are only S-rated (max. 180 kmh), whereas we should actually not go below H-rated (210 kmh), which is what the Pagoda is rated for. In Germany they are very strict on this, and if they stop you are see less than H-rated tyres on your Pagoda, you cannot drive from the site! In Denmark, and I guess other European countries as well, they are not as strict. But you do not want to rule out a drive to Germany in your Pagoda, due to low-rated tyres!
However, the Hankook KINERGY ST tyres are T-rated (190 kmh), and they look like they have the pretty narrow side stribes, thus they seem an acceptable nice looking alternative to the expensive tyres. A runner up could be the Milestars in the same size, also with the same 16-17 mm side stribes, though only S-rated. But no drive to Germany with these tyres unfortunately.
Does anyone have experience with the Milestars?
Cheers,
Christian